Sponsorship & Underwriting Campaigns

Sponsorship and underwriting campaigns are in the parlance of fundraising designated gift campaigns. The money they bring in is promised to a narrowly defined aspect of a nonprofit organization's good works. Gifts to these types of campaigns meet specific needs of a nonprofit. Donations are made to them for a variety of reasons, but it would be a rare donor who made a gift to a sponsorship or underwriting campaign who didn't have an interest in the specific he or she was supporting.

We would argue that any donation which carries with it naming rights of any type is in a broad sense an underwriting campaign. Thinking about sponsorship and underwriting as belonging to the same family as naming rights points us to how such an incentive can be used to appeal to specific donors. That, of course, brings us back to how knowing your donors is a key to soliciting them.

And that brings us full circle and back to how fundraising for specific sponsorship and underwriting opportunities can be a strategy used to increase the gifts of individuals and grant-making organizations for whom visibility is an enticement.